


Loneliness

by theartfulroger



Category: Dark Tower - Stephen King
Genre: Bisexual Character, Friends With Benefits, M/M, experimenting, implied sexytimes if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-21 11:10:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3690048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theartfulroger/pseuds/theartfulroger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A night in Debaria, Jamie asks a question and receives an answer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loneliness

**Author's Note:**

> 1) I don't think Roland and Jamie shared a bed in Debaria. Humor me and pretend they did.
> 
> 2) I remember WTtKH being after the whole Susan thing. If that is incorrect, whatever. Pretend this is under different circumstances. 
> 
> Dark Tower isn't mine, don't sue.

Jamie lay stiffly in the bed next to Roland. His tense position only served to put Roland more on edge. The Debaria inn was just so awful, it smelled of piss and rats and the feeling that the skin-man was out there somewhere and they were lying uselessly in bed was not a comfortable one. Jamie's breathing was irregular and harsh. Roland could tell that his companion was just as distraught as he.

"Roland," Jamie finally said. Roland braced himself for an onslaught of worries about the skin-man and half-baked potential strategies from a sleepy, anxious mind. "I know we are not close in the same fashion you are with Cuthbert and Alain, but confide in me this." Roland turned around so he was facing Jamie. His ka-mate's facial expression was tight and nervous. "Have you ever been with a woman?"

The question was certainly not what Roland had expected from him. But there was no use in lying. "Aye."

"You're not going to ask why I asked?"

"It's your business, none of mine." 

"I never have been with a woman. They think me ugly, I think. The marks on my face and on my hand, you know. I did many a thing to appear strong, and although that wasn't really for the girls at all, it was for me, it still would have been fair to have one." Roland looked at him. "You don't know how to respond," Jamie guessed.

"I don't see your face and hand to be ugly. Jamie of the Red Hand is as good a title as any."

"Thankee, but yours is an empty compliment. I can hear it in your voice."

"I now want to know why you told me this at all, if you were not going to believe what I said in response."

"I don't know," Jamie said, sighing. "I just figured perhaps you'd know how I felt. But I suppose not."

Roland thought of Susan Delgado and his chest began to tighten. "Listen to me, Jamie De Curry, being with a woman is nothing you can keep forever. You have the memory but the experience is a fleeting one. The love I had once was mighty and true, but it is gone. Relations with women are but a step in ka's journey, the things one does with them do not last."

"But men are forever," Jamie said, chuckling. "Because we are friends, were we lovers we'd last far longer than any woman. I think the problem with the way we approach them is that we do not recognize that if we were to treat them as we did the men in our lives, we'd have much more solid courtships."

"I saw you fling manure at Thomas one day. Perhaps the reason you have never lain with a woman is because you treat them so." This sent Jamie into a gale of laughter. 

After quieting himself, Jamie said, "You are a lonely fellow, Roland." Roland said nothing in response. "We are both lonely," he continued. "We are alone here in a strange place. I think we ought to take what ka gives us."

Roland, beginning to see what Jamie was getting at, leaned closer. He thought of Cuthbert for a moment, and how Cuthbert had dared him to kiss him on the cheek. And he'd done so and Cuthbert had howled with laughter and stuck out his tongue. He had never thought of men and women as separate sorts of love. The rule that separated them was unspoken and unreasonable in his mind. Why should it be odd to see both as equal?

He got the sense that Jamie did not think it was odd at all.

He cupped the back of Jamie's head in his hand and pulled him closed, kissing him gently. He then pulled back from Jamie's mouth and kissed the bright red mark on his face.

Jamie smiled up at him. "We are not lovers," he said. "Just lonely friends, I suppose."

"Aye," Roland said, and the idea of sleep was forgotten to him.


End file.
